Winnipeg Arts Council

s+r v27: Sisso and Maiko, Violence Gratuite, Mahlet Cuff

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Sisso & Maiko’s productions epitomize Singeli’s hyperlocal scenius, distilling the vitality and struggle of life of the fringes of the Swahili-speaking world’s most populous city. Between their ratchet rhythms and pitched-up melodies there’s a sublime, unresolved tension at play, where the music feels to accelerate so fast that dancers are gliding, sustaining a breathlessly “up” effect that uncannily recalls mid ’90s UK happy hardcore as much as Chicago footwork, Caribbean Soca, and Shangaan disco, yet with a psychotomimetic appeal all of its own.

A multidisciplinary artist and curator, Violaine Morgan Le Fur (aka Violence Gratuite) has spent the last few years sharpening her creative perspective, developing documentaries, producing exhibitions, and directing music videos and short films. Violaine is based between France and Cameroon. She directed her first autobiographical documentary « To the West » (original title À l’Ouest) in which she goes in search of the tomb of her father buried in western Cameroon.

Mahlet Cuff is an emerging DJ and sound artist that uses Black Diasporic genres such as House, electronic, Techno, Dancehall, as a portal to create space for their communities. As a Black queer femme, and wanting to be able to be in conversation with the Black Queer and Trans audience that they are playing for. They use critical fabulation as a way to fill in the gaps where the erasure of Blackness when it comes to genres such as house, electronic and techno.